Everything flows…unevenly: social stratification in coupled socio-ecological systems

Socio-hydrology has quickly emerged as a potentially transformative interdisciplinary science for understanding barriers and opportunities to enhance sustainability in coupled human-water systems. Unequal, pre-existing social structures are an important feature of human-water system that shape the flow of water. Yet, the socio-hydrology has not yet fully attended to the issues of social stratification, inequality, and power. This paper reviews advances in the field of environmental sociology on the relationship between social inequality and the natural environment. The goal is to open up questions about social inequalities that would further enhance socio-hydrological science.